a spool of yarn

i quipped: happiness ii

2012-01-29T14:30:00.005+08:00

one problem with knowledge or awareness is that you gain it as you aged, as life progresses, that when you already know what is valuable, what is important, what really would make you happy, you might already be frail, old...ravaged by time.

now i understand the film, the curious case of benjamin button. i wish life could only be lived that way.

isle-hopping vice

2012-01-20T00:25:00.011+08:00

she is one of my crushes from the british isles. she is now in the philippine isles for the bourne legacy shoot.

it must be the accent. it must be the eyes.

(Photo courtesy: PDI)

return of the yarn

2011-11-07T22:25:00.001+08:00

;)

i quipped: happiness i

2011-11-07T22:23:00.005+08:00

the key to happiness is knowledge or the awareness of the present reality. it is not focus or concentration for this implies a struggle, a conscious effort. the knowledge or awareness being referred to comes out fluidly, naturally, almost to the point of being effortless.

space yarn

2011-07-12T23:44:00.005+08:00

my name is now in space. thanks tiburce for the tip. this blog is (officially) on hiatus.

liz

2011-03-26T07:20:00.002+08:00

so long for now liz, send my regards to audrey.

a polish lie

2011-03-04T01:11:00.003+08:00

i think that polish guy is lying...he said there were only two kinds of girls in the world--normal girls and german girls. i saw it in the bus, normal girls, german girls, and more german girls. hahaha!

first snow, 18Feb11 (it just melted)

2011-02-20T15:55:00.005+08:00

this is rather stale, i should have written about this last friday poland time.

last friday, i just experienced my very first snow. i could not capture it in my own words so i just quoted someone else,

"The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?"
-- J. B. (John Boynton) Priestley

wroclaw to the heavens

2011-02-13T17:45:00.007+08:00

i dreamt of reaching the sky but the sky is dark and dull here. i rather think otherwise (some worthless ramblings!).

frankfurt intl airport, 08 Feb 2011

2011-02-13T05:57:00.009+08:00

i admired what feat rizal did achieve in getting the respect of the german people, upon landing at the frankfurt airport.

it was certainly a feat getting the respect of this poker-faced people basing from what i observed on the airport.

postcards from poland

2011-02-13T02:29:00.016+08:00

on the lighter side or should i say the freezing side of things, it has been five days since arriving here in wroclaw (vrotslav) poland for a company sponsored training.

the trip to wroclaw took almost a day but the jet lag was not a problem for i was traveling towards a place with a much delayed time compared to rp (about 7 hours) so i guessed i just have to lengthen my time of sleep upon arriving.

fortunately, it was not yet snowing but temperatures go as low as -4 c due to wind chill.

one thing that's keeping me a bit uncomfortable is feeling alienated in a sea of caucasians. though the poles have been a non-communist since the 1990s and have since been exposed to other cultures such the asian, i can still notice some people having those long stares after seeing someone not polish like myself.

i frequent european film festivals in shangrila shaw (e.g. italian film festivals, cine-europa, etc.) and those scenes shot on those wide european plazas and wide parks are not anything i would be unfamiliar of, for now i already have a first hand experience of strolling in a european plaza, ;).

the other bruno

2011-02-01T22:40:00.005+08:00

did i just hear mj singing, resurrecting himself but with a twist in bruno mars?

the drum loops, piano, and the falsetto sounding coldplay-esque (sound of coldplay's most recent album)?

my ears are tricking me. his name says it all.

quadricentennial

2011-01-27T09:06:00.007+08:00

four hundred years after and the philippines is behind south korea by at least 50 years. sokor's oldest university is just more than a century's old, so what is the argument all about? four hundred years of an educational system which has failed to deliver?

my blogging's golden age

2011-01-26T12:48:00.005+08:00

re-reading all my blog entries, i just discovered that i am getting rusty as i reached my fifth year of blogging.

basing on the number of entries i posted, i was not able to replicate the number of entries on year 2007 and 2008. interestingly, those were the years of my genesis in my life in manila and in the corporate world.

geneses, in all of their chaos and uncertainty, are really great sources for something to write. do i need to welcome disruptions and uprootings again to welcome more geneses? should i try to become more bohemian this year?

job hopper

2011-01-26T12:30:00.004+08:00

i can say my last job hopping move is different from the preceeding two i have done so far.

i left a> without any ill feelings, especially with my workmates. had it not for a much generous monetary offer by my present job, i would not decide leaving it.

chicken (pox) run

2011-01-21T13:51:00.011+08:00

one of the ghosts of my childhood came rushing at my doorsteps last week. my housemate caught chicken pox and, unfortunately, i have not contracted it as a child when i could have had it already.

aside from not being able to learn how to ride a bike, having not contracted chicken pox is one of my childhood "hangups." strange but it is one of the few instances where i would want to get ill rather than having that constant worry of scars which i could have in a lifetime already. but as of now, again, i have to make another chickenpox run for i am in a new company, still on a probationary status without a health card and vacation leaves. i have to be practical.

when i was in sixth grade, my father (he was 48 years old then) and my sister had it almost at the same time, however, i escaped from getting it by leaving my house temporarily for i was vying for honors then. due to "intense competition", i could not manage to get absent for long. i may be on the same track with him getting it in the later years.

consumatum est

2010-12-28T21:33:00.002+08:00

it is ended. resignation delivered.

happy 2014th bday jess

2010-12-25T13:34:00.007+08:00

the idea of god becoming man would baffle even the commonest logic. why did he create man in the first place to send himself as a man to save these lowly mortals? why did he create man who would turn out be a great head ache to him and even challenge his existence?

was he just power tripping? was he bored to death that immortality is a great bore?

words can approximate the reason but still it is as humanly as it is limited.

pac's twilight zone

2010-11-28T16:25:00.004+08:00

hell, in one of the episodes of the famous american classic tv series, is the situation where the thrill of winning is lost. how frustrating is it that winning becomes so stale, predictable and outright ordinary.

with the pacquiao's recent win over margarito where winning becomes a bore, is he approaching his twilight zone?

for a country which hungers for a national hero and inspiration, hell no!

cake is sweet--both the food and the band

2010-10-28T15:14:00.006+08:00

no offense to parokya ni edgar, but when they did a rendition of another rendition of a song "i will survive" by cake, i overlooked the latter.

now hearing them again, more than a decade ago, with songs like "stranger in the nights", "the guitar man", "short skirt, long jacket", i regret only having the food as my guilty pleasure.

p.s. and those wicked bass lines, what more could i ask for?

out of my league

2010-09-30T20:29:00.004+08:00

need i say more? she's really out my league. how many years of education should i take to catch up with a woman like her?

way the go alice eve.

not cheesy this time

2010-09-24T00:38:00.009+08:00

i've never thought that this song (baby) of jb (i insist he deserves space here) is about heart-brokenness and its a sad song upon listening to one version of it, stripped down and sung with poignancy by a lady singer.

such poignancy can even give it a license to be sung grunge-style, how's that for a rendition?

it reminds me of songs done by abba. many listeners would be tricked that it sounds disco but once they got to know the lyrics, it's about separation and breakups (e.g. mamma mia, knowing me and knowing you), loneliness while on the road (supertrouper), and anything under a sad, long, midnight scandinavian sun.

blame it to the piper

2010-09-11T23:12:00.007+08:00

damn, that restlessness, it seems everyone has their own "pied piper of hamelin"?

when this dust settles down, what becomes of me?

thanks fs

2010-09-07T06:55:00.003+08:00

"Take the direction you know is best for you, and leave all self-destructive paths behind. In fact, go ahead and erect barriers and 'No Trespassing' signs, if that helps remind you not to tread ways that ultimately proved to be unhealthy for you. Some might accuse you of being 'too good' for your old friends or old ways, and they're right -- you're far too good to waste yourself on behaviors that wreck your potential. Your instincts are wiser than any outside influence."

inflection

2010-08-31T22:51:00.007+08:00

People die of common sense, Dorian, one lost moment at a time. Life is a moment. There is no hereafter. So make it burn always with the hardest flame." -- Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian Gray(2009)

there should be a gamble i must take while my youth is still a weapon accessible to me. what is that gamble? that's the question.

it's been a traumatic august for the philippines, the same goes to me as well.

what's my totem?

2010-08-09T00:23:00.008+08:00

after watching inception, i have been wondering what could be my totem to remind me that i am not dreaming?

probably my room key. it should only be able to open my room not anybody else's room, as simple and as real as that.

happy bday good old one

2010-07-27T01:13:00.012+08:00

i was thinking of a right tribute to my good old one because it his 64th birthday today. i thought of the passage from isaiah 11:1, which says,

"there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots."

but i began hearing hey jude being played on my vlc player. my father was never a john-lennon-rock-and-roll-type guy. but as a father, he was much, much, greater than john lennon. paul mccartney, would never had written this song for julian, john's son to cynthia, if he (john) did not divorce cynthia leaving their son for yoko. my father spared me with such a heartache.

i replayed hey jude.

british humor over eclipse

2010-07-10T15:29:00.004+08:00

come to think of it, totoo nga naman.

necrophilia - sexual relations with a dead man turned into a vampire.

bestiality - sexual relations with a werewolf.

ringo at 70

2010-07-08T20:10:00.009+08:00

he may not be my favorite beatle, but his tribute song photographs to my favorite beatle, george harrison, is my favorite.

(photo credits: www.dailymail.co.uk)

am i m.a.?

2010-07-05T23:01:00.012+08:00

one of the articles i read in health and home (a decade and a prom night ago), humorously defined the abbreviation of master's degree, MA, as "mentally abnormal" and doctoral studies, PhD, as "permanent head damage".

after a month of attending master's, i am wondering if i really need to take it considering the availability of educational materials on the internet which i can readily download and study at my own pace. i am quite convinced that this is really changing the traditional way of getting educated.

the venue, the manner of delivering education may change, but the idea of mentally retiring at a very young age though makes me cringe and enough to drive me to be m.a.

a near hit

2010-06-30T23:04:00.009+08:00

four years from now, the chance of an asteroid hitting earth would be one in 909,000. i've never realized it until now, had it not been for pnoy's victory, erap would have been elected president with him coming in second place and even beating manny v. no complex astronomical calculations are needed to determine how close a convicted man was almost elevated to the presidency. though the chance of the former from occurring is lesser than the latter, electing someone like him was tragic to philippine politics as to an asteroid hitting home.

6 x 28

2010-06-30T00:21:00.003+08:00

six presidents have passed during the last 28 years of my existence. jittery about p-noy because by the time his term ends, i would have been 34 then and have gone beyond quarter-life crisis. i hope he does well as president. he should be the last person that would come to mind if ever i would gripe about extending this period of ambiguity and indecision.

marcos
aquino
ramos
estrada
arroyo
aquino

in the key of b

2010-05-31T15:21:00.013+08:00

i almost spent the rest of the day in a sweaty shirt locked out in my own pad (all of my housemates went to work already) with no money and no phone after doing my usual 5-kilometer morning jog in the compound of our pad, had it not for my neighbor who was my batch mate in high school and who lent me money to have my key duplicated, which was broken into two due to two years of wear and tear. keyholes, keys, and brotherhood did mix on this last day of may.

mexican standoff

2010-05-25T16:26:00.007+08:00

forgive me if i fall short in the use of analogy, but now i am in a mexican standoff with life, career, and everything in between.

i am seeing three guns pointed to life and at the same time to me. one wrong move, i lose the three of them.

i am enrolling to graduate school.

i am applying for jobs abroad.

and, i am aiming to pass certifications.

the classic me, half-heartedness in all things, trying to do so many things in one step.

transformers: foxy no more

2010-05-20T09:40:00.003+08:00

what a drag!

megan fox dropped from transformers 3.

happy third anniversary (belated)

2010-04-25T23:26:00.001+08:00

this is the third year of my blog (april 22).

crossing the T

2010-04-25T23:11:00.009+08:00

it has been almost a year, since i began my running regimen just to keep the pounds away. on the average, at least i am able to make 10 rounds of the t-shaped track each week. i estimated the total length of the track to be 500 meters, which would mean each week, at least, i am able to make 5 kilometers. in a year, i was able to log 240 km total.

fr. rolly

2010-04-08T07:34:00.007+08:00

"each and every single one of you must be globally competitive" - fr. raul bonoan, sj

these words delivered in his characteristic descending intonation (as if running out of breath) during homilies and speeches, still resonate every time i remember father bonoan.

upon reading tibibord's blog article about him, i recalled the time when he was handing me my high school diploma during our graduation in front of the four pillars back in march 1999. as he was about to reach my hand for a hand shake, out of nowhere he asked me, "so you are the one not going to manila, i'll see you here in june." he died april 6. i did not pursue college in manila (i passed the upcat and the acet), instead i remained in naga.

our batch was the last graduation he attended to. his stay in naga was highlighted and punctuated by adnu becoming a university and then sadly, making an exit, permanently.

neeson vs fiennes

2010-04-05T18:20:00.017+08:00

these two guys must have had deep-seated issues between each other (wink!).

round 1 (schindler's list):

(Photo credits: www.gonemovies.com)

round 2 (clash of the titans):

(Photo credits: http://movies.msn.com/)

i am relieved, their conflicts are just cinematically real. they fight with megalomanic consequences.

note: what i meant by "cinematically real" is pairing neeson and fiennes as protagonist and antagonist respectively, not that the holycaust was unreal in the movie schindler's list.

wikipedia has been hacked!

2010-04-01T11:37:00.003+08:00

happy april fool's day!

emancipation

2010-03-18T22:40:00.013+08:00

yesterday, i fully served the two-year bond i signed up with my company. i can now freely resign from this day on.

why did i in the first place agree to subject myself in a two-year bond? the bond was a test of endurance and persistence for me. any hint of dissatisfaction would have caused me to resign easily and the cycle would have repeated itself, if not for the bond.

just timeless

2010-03-18T09:12:00.018+08:00

nothing lasts forever even cold november rain...

(Photo credits: www.thevine.com.au)

18 years hence, and two scores of stephanie seymour's life, her beauty still hurts. i am having a nauseating dose of beauties from the 80's and 90's. i just got finish watching ferris bueller's day off (mia sarah) and tootsie (jessica lange).

(Photo credits: www.dailymail.co.uk)

(all we are saying) give tado a chance?!

2010-03-11T23:19:00.014+08:00

this blog has been trying to be apolitical but just not now. i wonder what could he bring to my former home, marikina, if he wins as a councilor.

should we expect an avant-garde, hippiesh, bohemian councilor? it's about time that marikina changes its baby pink and blue color scheme to something that of andy warholesque, with a touch of tado.

by the way, i admire him for running independent.

so long feb

2010-02-26T09:11:00.005+08:00

my birth month is ending. el nino indeed has ruined the mornings i am fond of to occur.

gone are the foggy mornings.

vertically not fated

2010-02-04T10:01:00.007+08:00

where was this 9 years ago? i would have been eligible in pma.

"Military ‘lowers’ standards for recruits"

i am not as vertically challenged as one would think. i am an inch or two taller than napoleon bonaparte using the british standard. of course, he is taller than me by the french measurement.

not a celebrity at 27

2010-02-02T23:23:00.008+08:00

i had a funny thought that with the recent "health conditions" i had, i would be joining the 27 club--rock celebrities who died prematurely at age 27.

god forbid, that never happened. damn those doctors and hospitals, i realized that they might be just milking me of my medical card, diagnosing me of diseases i am too young to incur.

this day, my age is a perfect number, that is, the sum of its factors equals the number. my friend nick told me that there are only two perfect numbers a normal person's age could be, which is 6 and 28. the next number is 496.

at 28, i promised that i would let my legacy last up to 496 years.

but i'll take this chance to honor those people who are members of the 27 club, who i believe whose legacy will last even beyond. viva la vida, 27!

artists who belong to the 27 club:

brian jones, 27 years and 125 days
jimi hendrix, 27 years and 295 days
janis joplin, 27 years and 258 days
jim morrison, 27 years and 207 days
kurt cobain, 27 years and 44 days

one deep torrent

2010-01-30T13:51:00.005+08:00

i was done downloading the live albums of deep purple and the best of album of juan de la cruz band. i feel envy, for them life has been "one long gig".

flashy, that's all

2010-01-19T11:18:00.003+08:00

duncan jones, comments on the film avatar,

"...at what point in the film did you have any doubt what was going to happen next?"

i totally agree. good thing i never spent 500 bucks by not watching it in imax. sherlock holmes has a far interesting storyline.

blind-sighted to the moment

2010-01-16T12:28:00.004+08:00

we really are still groping in the dark. we could lose everything in a moment.

Hundreds feared dead as 7.0 quake strikes Haiti

homecomings

2009-12-31T18:22:00.004+08:00

two school reunions, one in elementary (6th) and high school (the 1st, traditionally done on the 10th year after graduation and the succeeding years), are enough to make me feel both comfortably and uncomfortably (i might enjoy it so much) at home again.

i was undoubtedly at home again. i did what i have not done since graduating college--taking a piss on my elementary school's gate. geesh!

bottomline

2009-12-27T00:22:00.004+08:00

a hero (e.p.) fell from grace when he aimed for an angel.

restless

2009-12-16T20:52:00.006+08:00

i believe this has been the most restless last six months of a year for the philippines since i worked here in manila because of the many events such as:

- the death of cory aquino
- seventh championship of pacquiao
- a filipino winning as cnn hero of the year
- the floods of ondoy
- the massacre in maguindanao
- and now, the eruption of mayon volcano.

the philippines has been on its exhilirating highs and depressing lows. as for myself, more or less the same goes as i have to juggle responsibilities of being for the first time the bread winner in the family, career, and so many other things that cause living in manila restless, at times stressful. talking about the chaos that accompanies transitions, i say, my saturn's return is already on my door steps. the door is now opened. welcome to adult life!

feed-up on american adobo?

2009-12-05T12:57:00.006+08:00

i've tried testing my eligibility for the 2010 us green card lottery program, and i was not eligible with philippines as my country of birth.

but i keyed in indonesia, malaysia, thailand and even zambia and all of them are eligible. good thing china is not. surprisingly, iraq and afghanistan are eligible.

face to face, manny-a-manny

2009-12-04T10:40:00.005+08:00

last sunday in st. francis church in manda, i never noticed manny p. was sitting two pews ahead of me until the priest acknowledged him on the sermon.

was i startruck? nope. he really blends well with crowd.

yeah baby yeah

2009-10-17T11:04:00.010+08:00

she can pull off riding a big bike better than i do.

(jane cottrell, kennedy space center's only woman welder.)

photo credits: www.time.com

i quipped: childhood

2009-09-26T07:57:00.004+08:00

one problem with childhood is one gets to enjoy innocence without the awareness of it.

exceptions

2009-09-25T10:51:00.013+08:00

everybody now is in facebook, except for me. another social networking profile to maintain is another ego trip i am laboriously preventing myself to start.

i have noticed for the past two years of my blog, septembers have been relatively stimulating, enough for me to write many entries except for this year.

my friendster's horoscope reads today,

"don't waste time trying to find out why things are happening. go with the flow. every now and then, events really hit home and cause you to critically examine your place in this world. perhaps it is time for you to take a more active role in community affairs, or maybe you have your sights set even higher. if you make commitments, however, you must be determined to follow through with them. while your talents can be put to very good use, empty promises cannot."

and last saturday i was struck by one of the questions in game ka na ba. edu was asking, "what book were these lines mentioned, 'if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.'”?

life has never been that easy except for the cheshire cat.

MAD

2009-09-16T08:42:00.007+08:00

miriam is again on the roll. kudos to her for another quotable line comparing the exchanges between lacson and estrada as MAD (mutually assured destruction). she is disarmingly witty borrowing a term from the cold war era.

a colgate-free mall?

2009-09-05T16:21:00.004+08:00

i thought my eyes were playing tricks on me for that i could not find any single colgate tube on megamall's shopping stands, and indeed this is one of the few saturdays when colgate is not available.

i couldn't anymore say "pabili ng colgate" when i meant buying toothpaste,in general.

and then they were three

2009-08-05T10:12:00.006+08:00

tsutomu yamaguchi is not the only one double A-bomb victim. there are three of them who are still alive today. tomorrow is the 64th annual commemoration of the hiroshima bombing.

thanks yellow one

2009-08-01T20:23:00.020+08:00

the first and only time i saw democracy icon cory aquino in person was in february 1996 when a monument was dedicated to peace and ninoy aquino in plaza rizal, naga city. the arrow points to the monument.

rest in peace!

p.s. she is now with the immortals. ninoy hindi ka na magiisa. but kidding aside looking back at the picture, she will have a long chat with the man depicted in the statue in the background who died a century ago for the same noble reason ninoy and she was fighting for.

l6: onwards to salvation

2009-08-01T00:26:00.011+08:00

one question cropped up in my mind after watching terminator 1, 2 and 3 is "why is it that though the t101 model is outdated compared to the other terminator models sent to counter it, it still manages to prevail in the end?"

my motorola l6 cellphone is three years old. it's casing just got broken, detached,unhinged, but i do not want to replace it yet. i plan to replace its casing instead prolonging its use, rather than buying a new one. it still serves its purpose, effectively, just like the t101.

two survivors

2009-07-18T22:21:00.004+08:00

i am such a weakling in front of these two survivors.

tsutomu yamaguchi
"Yamaguchi, an engineer in Hiroshima on a business trip for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on August 6, 1945 was just stepping off a tram when the atomic bomb Little Boy was dropped over the city just 3 kilometers away. The resulting explosion destroyed his eardrums, blinded him temporarily, and left him with serious burns over the left side of the top half of his body. He was wrapped in bandages for his skin wounds, and he went completely bald. Like many of the survivors of the atomic explosions, Yamaguchi suffered from effects caused by the explosions for much of his life. His wife was also poisoned by black rain. Yamaguchi spent a fitful night in an air raid shelter before returning to his hometown of Nagasaki the following day. Yamaguchi was once again 3 kilometers away explaining to his supervisor how close he came to death just a few days before when the second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped" - from www.wikipedia.org

henry allingham
"...the world's oldest man and one of the last surviving World War I servicemen, has died at the age of 113, his care home has said." - from http://news.bbc.co.uk

thnks fr th mmrs

2009-06-28T09:47:00.009+08:00

itunes top songs as of june 28, 2009:

1. Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson
2. I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas
3. The Way You Make Me Feel (Single Version) by Michael Jackson
4. Thriller by Michael Jackson
5. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough (Single Version) by Michael Jackson
6. Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson
7. Black or White (Single Version) by Michael Jackson
8. Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas
9. P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) by Michael Jackson
10. Fire Burning by Sean Kingston

the songs a person often remembers are the ones he had good memories with. all these seven songs occupying the top 10 slots had snippets of my childhood. thanks mj.

raisins in gothic

2009-05-20T20:12:00.018+08:00

the choice was supposed to be easy over what dried raisins' brand i would buy to make an oatmeal breakfast interesting and not to grow sick of it. my first choice was sun maid california raisins and i already bought it once.

but something caught my eye on the periphery and it resembled a painting of a american farm couple, entitled american gothic and painted in the 1930s. what i saw actually was not the real portrait but a spoof. the couple was not as remote in time as the american gothic , the couple, in reality, was paul newman and joanne woodward. to make the story short, i ended up grabbing the raisins from the farm of the hollywood philantrophist who has made 200 million dollars in donation which includes sales from dried raisins.

photo credits: www.amazon.com

torrent download: dandy warhols

2009-05-17T09:10:00.009+08:00

what i consider as the best studio album of the dandy warhols after i have listened to six of their album is thirteen tales from urban bohemia. this also contains the song bohemian like you which introduced me to the band.

new band discoveries (or rediscoveries):

yeah yeah yeahs
10000 maniacs

ryan's spool: principle

2009-05-11T06:57:00.001+08:00

"finding for the slack to gain inertia"

deuce

2009-04-30T23:14:00.001+08:00

my blog just turned two years old last april 22.

pinned!

2009-04-22T21:46:00.004+08:00

mark this day, i had my two highest scoring games in bowling--93 and 132.

decade iii

2009-04-22T21:38:00.010+08:00

i mapped out how the third decade of my life went through as i near its end two years from now. it is relatively a flat line as i see it as compared to the first two decades. a friend told me that it is too early to be responsible and this decade should have been spend to recklessness, hedonistic pursuits, and even to promiscuity. i've got two years more especially with the last one, so rock and roll!

seriously though, my life so far has been also relatively light. i get to pay the rent and to bring the food on the table, so they say, though i might not have led a rock and roll kind of life, or any don-juan-like exploit, still, i am thankful.

most livable city?

2009-04-14T22:18:00.001+08:00

copenhagen is said to be the capital of the happiest people on earth and here comes the catch, as well as the world's least religious. what a great test of faith, two days after easter.

my response to the quiet beatle

2009-04-07T17:04:00.007+08:00

george harrison wants his music to be this way: ""Guitars, basic drums and analog tapes -- that's the way I like it. It doesn't go with trends. My trousers don't get wider and tighter every six months. My music just stays what it is, and that's it."

in my case, a lingering guitar riff (guitar hooks of roxette), prominent bass lines (the cure and new order), emotive power drums (synth-pop band a-ha), and a tinge of melancholy (keane and coldplay) will do the trick but i guess they are too big for any musicians' pants to accomodate. but one thing's for sure i will still continue feasting on george's weeping guitar lines.

acute rhinosinusitis

2009-03-10T21:18:00.004+08:00

i am sick as hell. one of the things i dread the most living alone here in manila. i miss home.

when i shrugged it off as just sinusitis, it is far underrated when you finally have it. when acute and then "rhino" is prefixed on sinusitis, it is a feeling like micro rhinos goring my head.

gamitan

2009-02-28T19:49:00.011+08:00

printed on a tarpaulin add behind the guards inspecting baggage on mrt-cubao station:

USE REXONA WOMEN AFTER BATH (all caps, no commas, no italics)

gamitan na toh. tawas, anyone?

(anyone hear of subliminal? will someone please tell me, "you are thinking too much"?).

anchors

2009-02-23T21:16:00.004+08:00

an article on the net reported that at its worst, the economic crisis of 2007 - 2009 is competing for the title of worst post-war recession with 1981 - 1982.it added that people should be reassured that this is nowhere close to the great depression of the 1930s.

in 1982, i was just a tiny dot floating and eventually implanting myself in my mother's womb to let genetics begin to unload what was certainly fated, devoid of any worry, of any uncertainty which unlike now, 27 years hence, the start of my supposedly most productive years of my lifetime is facing and being clobbered with uncertainties from the global economic crisis, global warming, fleeting and rapidly changing status quo, which makes it harder for me to take root, to find something for myself to anchor on.

filtered lunacy

2009-02-04T21:31:00.009+08:00

giving in to curiousity and celebrating my red-letter day a couple of days ago, i googled in my office desktop, who are the famous aquarians, whose zodiac sign has been infamously associated with lunacy.

but i was disappointed when i clicked on the second link presented to me by google, it was blocked by our i.t. security system. what i got was a display shown below,

i tried typing and clicking several types of religious affiliations, including iglesia ni cristo, mormon, jehovah's witnesses, latter-day saints, pentecostal and all of them were never blocked. thanked God still our company observes religious freedom.

but one religion/cult never passed through the security system and made me exclaimed, "bravo to our filtering system". i typed and clicked on scientology, a cult that preaches that aliens once ruled the world and they are bound to return.i do not have to be an aquarian to be bordering around lunacy after all.

tumanda ng paurong

2009-01-30T22:39:00.003+08:00

one of the forum threads i read in peyups, which puts the film the curious case of benjamin button on a lighter note went on to ridicule that the director committed a mistake on the manner benjamin button should die. if he is growing "young" instead of growing old, he should have died as an orgasm, or as a gamete, :)

oo nga naman.

survival of the "most canine"

2009-01-11T22:00:00.007+08:00

man's best friend is not a friend at all, when you have to live and compete with them in such a constrained space such a condo unit.

adieu 2008!

2009-01-09T23:30:00.005+08:00

"traveling is where we are eternally anchored" - anonymous

as a person, i have never been very mobile but what marked 2008 was the transfers i made in my career, companies, pad (thrice), islands (three, thru vacation trips) and even personal perks and beliefs--i have been more cynical ever since. call it growth.

luck alike?

2008-12-02T12:11:00.006+08:00

photo credits: gi toengi (www.jobsdb.com)
scarlett johansson (www.smh.com)

i see them as lookalikes but luck and hollywood looks on them more discriminating than i do.

14

2008-11-22T20:26:00.006+08:00

14 million dollars. the total cost of gnr's, a decade-in-the making album chinese democracy.

14 year-old teens. the audience of the scandinavian band, mltr, which is having a concert as of this time in araneta coliseum. i admit, they represent an episode of my teen-age life but sadly they never grew up musically. they still sang with the naivete of a 14-year old teen-ager.

lightning doesn't hit twice, fires do

2008-11-08T01:02:00.006+08:00

on the provincial news section of philstar,

"fire hits naga city public market"

last thursday night 11 pm, 1500 stalls were reduced to ashes on the second and third floor of the naga city public market. in my lifetime, i come to know two fires happening in the naga city market. i think i was four or five when i first witnessed it, my mother and i, were in robertson mall, when fire was raging over the public market. what caught my attention was not the alarm caused by the fire, but by seeing for the first time the fire trucks in action, as if i was delighted to see more fires so that i can see more fire trucks.

twenty-one years hence, good thing i never became a fireman. i would have reprimanded myself, "be careful of what you wished for, it might come true".

it's obama time!

2008-11-06T22:04:00.015+08:00

i am born into a generation that witnessed the first black president in the country behind "pax americana". the devil's advocate in me is sometimes not impressed. it could have been more dramatic if someone who from the ghetto on the bronx, who grew up in a riotous neighborhood, who listened to gangsta rap and immersed in hip-hop culture but with grit, will and luck, managed to study and graduate in harvard, was instead elected to the most powerful position in the world.

nevertheless, biden will not be called 'dawg', or else everyone in the "hood" will be getting "jiggy with it".

well, i am not racist. i just want to send the message that obama's victory should inspire the minority in this case the black people to aspire for higher and worthwhile goals, rather than be emboldened to pursue a false view of pleasure and recreation, of portraying girls hedonistically in rap videos, of not promoting violence and clannish culture, of not equating personality with bright and shiny "blings".

2nd placer

2008-10-30T18:20:00.006+08:00

congrats to kristoffer sy laiz and the rest of the ninth batch of adnu ece's for clinching the 2nd spot out of 10 placers in the recent october 2008 board examinations. you have made our batch nine notches dumber. you have made the pillars stood prouder.

digg's friendster comment by me

2008-10-19T18:35:00.004+08:00

i have written this down as my tribute to one of my beloved high school mentors:

It is always a nice sight seeing him while i was still in school. he is one lasting reminder of a happy high school life i had. i came to know him because he was our moderator in LG-1T '95-96 and at the same time our English and Music Teacher. Remember sir, our Intrams uniform, where a picture of Kiss band is[sic] printed on it and named our class 'ROCK 1T BOYZ'. You invented your own term for 'embossed' printing. hehehe ito sir L@2&g...hahaha...somehow u have[sic] injected in us, young men to be ROCK STARs, of whom you are one, while we stage our own rock shows called LIFE. To always find fun in lyf, to aspire for kick-ass endeavors, and to be L@20g. TO SIR, HARD ON!!!I mean, ROCK ON!!! 21 guns salute...Naaaaah...21 HORN SIGNS FOR SIR DIGGS!Hehehe...Thanks a lot sir!

bluesy

2008-10-16T12:59:00.012+08:00

please read the letter, I
wrote it in my sleep
with help and consultation from
the angels of the deep
--an excerpt from please read the letter (c. jones, m. lee, j. page, r. plant)

i've been listening to, please read the letter, one of the songs included in the duet album of robert plant and alison krauss--raising sands.

it's like kenny rogers with robert plant's signature wails. with krauss's voice, for a time, orgasmic becomes angelic. even divine, as robert plant's pays homage to one of hard rock's origins.

things i miss from home

2008-10-15T15:47:00.003+08:00

1. walking on dry, cracked farm mud during april and may
2. adnu campus
3. kamias and gata
4. the view from my house's rooftop
5. fried abo (tiger-toothed croaker)

breastmilk is still best for babies

2008-10-03T18:24:00.006+08:00

-- from china with love

life was like a box of chocolates. you never know what you're gonna get unless they are milk chocolates.

--kung fu gump

hospital tour

2008-10-03T18:22:00.006+08:00

for the whole of september i was sick and since last week, i got to visit 2 clinical networks and one "five-star" hospital.

my health care card came in handy, but it's one fringe benefit i would preferably not avail. to be sick is still a malady.

megalomaniacs on youtube

2008-10-02T12:50:00.009+08:00

my housemate taunts me that i am obsessed with murder, wars, destruction, everytime he sees me watching series of documentaries on youtube about world war 2, hitler, stalin, nazism, gulag, the holocaust, etc.

"he is overacting, " i mused to myself. honestly, i am amused to see a different perspective of history as close to watching a news report on fox or cnn. the local counterpart part is too sensationalized, sad to say. one of this is how did the history channel pitted the four "warlords" of world war ii into "duel of minds". here was the summary:

hitler v. stalin.stalin was playing russian roulette with hitler. he (stalin) thought that hitler was militarily sane enough, that he would not attack him, so as to open another front, but he forgot that hitler was a dreamer, a misguided dreamer, as opposed to him, methodical and calculating. stalin was mistaken, hitler did indeed attack him, but thanks to russian winter, he (stalin) won the roulette.

roosevelt v. churchill.roosevelt, was the typical politician, someone who cannot be taken on face value. churchill tendency to be aristocratic and bossy, a generic british trait, failed on his own effort to drag "fdr" to declare war on germany, a politically hazardous decision for him (fdr) to take. like future american presidents succeding him, he arms other players, in this case comrade stalin, to do the war for him rather than the american people until japan attacked pearl harbor, but still it was germany who declared war first before he even delivered the "a day which will live in infamy" speech.

churchill v. stalin.with hundred years-old of imperialistic tendencies flowing in his veins, churchill tried to advance the interest of the "british empire" with "spheres of influence" after the post-war era. but stalin was shrewd, disregarding the human cost it would exact on the soviet people, he shouldered the brunt of the push to germany thus conquering more land and thus extending his sphere of influence. he once said, "a death of one man is tragedy, a death of a million is statistic."

roosevelt v. stalin.roosevelt understood that this time it was a duel between "a harvard graduate" and a "revolutionary peasant". rather than approaching stalin with the air of superiority unlike churchill, he reached out to stalin's previous training of a seminarian and even sense of humor by ridiculing the "britishness" of churchill. he believed that if favors must be given without condition or return to stalin, stalin with his own initiative would observe international laws and cooperate with the global community of the post-war era. sadly, he died before the war ends, the iron curtain divided the world and ushered into the cold-war era.

watching documentaries after documentaries and knowing that hitler exterminated 6-9 million and stalin purged and killed 20-30 million soviet and non-soviet, i realized how worst our minds can be. it is unimaginable because now i live in a much safer and peaceful place. history books will even fall short of picturing that past, grim reality.

i, through the ages (lol!)

2008-10-01T14:28:00.005+08:00

wahehehehe...

paul newman dies

2008-09-28T09:53:00.007+08:00

paul newman dies at 83 on september 26, 2008.

what i admire most of this man is when he said when asked about his view on infidelity, "why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?". i may not know really if he stuck it out with "steak" all his life, but saying that is very unlikely of someone from polygamous hollywood. he stuck with his wife, joane woodward, for fifty years.

wilt chamberlain had done it with his "20000" women but he closed his sexual escapades with saying, "having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I have learned in my life I've found out that having one woman a thousand different times is much more satisfying."

i guess, they will be playing ball up there in heaven.

umbrella with a J-shaped handle

2008-09-25T20:09:00.014+08:00

moments ago, i did not care if the scientists halfway across the globe already discovered the glitch in the hadron collider, which is the most advanced and most expensive contraption ever made. what was the most advanced contraption for me was the umbrella and what was the most sensible thing for me to do was to find one so that i could go home without getting wet under this heavy rain.

after checking several stalls along the way, i failed to find the one which is sturdy and masculine enough, which opens with a press of a button, and which has a J-shaped handle. setting aside practicality, i keep on looking proving to myself my power of choice, that in midst of this supposedly common occurrence, which was then turning out to be already an inconvenience and a "crisis" for me for i was already two hours delayed to a 30-minute travel to my pad.

after two and a half hours of roaming from one stall to another i still pressed on to my "freedom of choice" rather than succumbing to the call of need and practicality. i decided to go home without buying one, good thing, i brought my office jacket with a hood to temporarily shield me from the rain. realizing that my jacket would not be enough, i had to give up that freedom of choice over a 50-peso umbrella i chanced upon two blocks away from my pad. there goes with the rain and into the sewers, my pride, my "freedom", my "power of choice", my "humanity", my "sense of style", and even my "status symbol". it was bittersweet when i finally reached my pad's porch. i was disappointed that i have to settle with the umbrella but contented i was not drenched with rainwater.

what could be the smartest thing a life form equipped with a powerful telescope and light-years away could say with a shrug after observing me, "earthlings!".

afterword: i don't care about that alien, i wonder what would maslow would say! i am retrogressing, i should have graduated from level one!

drowsy

2008-09-25T09:04:00.004+08:00

my doctor has prescribed two types of tablets for the dry cough i have for two weeks now.

one trouble with the medicines is i keep falling asleep while i am sitted at my workstation. i don't know if part of the efficacy of the medicine was for me to sleep so i don't cough a lot.

it's still effective though i do not anymore cough that forceful enough, as if i am going to expel out my lungs.

last song syndrome with "chair"

2008-09-16T11:32:00.011+08:00

I'm watching you watch over me
And I've got
The greatest view from here.

i am getting last song syndrome to silverchair's "greatest view" from their 2002 album diorama. reportedly, cueshe's "stay" was form out of this song as a rip-off.

the australian band never really caught my ears during their heydays. i was anti-grunge before.

i don't have someone to dedicate this song to, but i will agree with daniel johns, the band's vocalist and composer, if the "greatest view" is natalie imbruglia, his ex-wife, which i suppose inspired the song.

my cue

2008-09-07T00:13:00.009+08:00

"may sa demonyo ata ang tako, ah", i quipped to myself while i pocketed the "9" ball to the middle hole by hitting first the "4" ball lying just on the edge of the opposite middle hole and using the cue ball's reverse momentum. it was a night that i felt i was bata reyes, unfortunately i didn't have a video camera to record those classic and "magical" cue strikes.

amidst the fun i was enjoying that night, i was disturbed by the drama unfolding on a group of teen agers two tables away from us. the girl, or should i say lesbian judging by the way she moves, was pounding on the wall as she aired out her laments and anguish over the "injustices" of the world. she was probably watching a lot of telenovelas.

but nevertheless, i would have acted the same when i was a teenager--impulsive, reckless, and uncomposed with my emotions. when i was young, i hate to be old. who doesn't anyway? but considering the restraint and the control you learn to acquire especially during times when it's tempting to let emotions govern all, it is good to be old. i guess i am old, or should i say starting to be mature. i once read that when one grows older he wants to grow older more. older here refers to wisdom. a person might be all wrinkles and gray hair but never really is "old'.

i managed to pocket all those hard-to-hit billiard balls, maybe, because it was sheer luck, or 'chamba". however, i would rather believe that somehow with my years of playing, though only a "weekend player" or a "leisure player", i have aquired some level of maturity. as i aquire maturity, i find harmony and rhythm in things. in the games of billiards, maturity teaches me to stand back first, acquire the "feel" of the chalk powder in the cue stick, calculate the amount of force to guide the ball in the roughness of the canvass, and when the moment is ripe, i decide to strike.

workplaces

2008-09-05T09:58:00.006+08:00

in two week's time i'll be transferring to another office or place of work. this time its outside of the makati business district. i have been to several workplaces in my three years as a struggling yuppie.

unassuming warehouse. though i was always wary that anytime a three-storey high stacking of crates falls on me or the fork-lift impales me or a bolt makes a cauliflower out of my big toe, i spent almost a year in a warehouse doing inventory and logistics. an eye opener for me because i came to acquaint myself with mostly out-of-school youths earning a living through what could their limited education could provide them.

the infamous cubicle. life is said to be made of three boxes—education, work, and retirement, and if this is true, i will be spending a third of my life inside this infamous box, literally!well, that depends on what output i could produce out of this box. i just envy the rock stars and actors. work and play are the same.

carefree on-site work. this is one of my favorites. it is like "laskwatsa" on the job. i get a free tour of the countryside especially if it is out of manila without the prying eyes of my bosses.

freezing equipment room.if air-conditioned room would be such a relief in a very humid day, being in this room is the time i hate airconditioners for they were there not for humans but for the machines to prevent them from making an oven out of themselves. all the time, i hear either the hum of the airconditions motors or of the equipment themselves.

cross-country training.this depends on the available resources of a company and, at times, luck and competence, as well. though i may eventually work abroad, my trip to india somehow level the field. i realized that i could grab opportunities even globally.

disposable teens

2008-09-01T11:29:00.005+08:00

You said you wanted evolution
The ape was a great big hit
You said you want a revolution, man
And I say that you're full of sh!+.

--marilyn manson

one of the few lyrics i find freakingly profound of marilyn manson.

full military honors

2008-08-31T13:28:00.006+08:00

not that i would like to show any behavior that is opposite of sadness and bereavement for my grandfather-in-law who was just buried last saturday but i somehow envy the burial he just had. he was buried with full military honors, my first time i witnessed one.

i wished that if i die i want to have that kind of burial. i am not in the military unlike my grandfather-in-law was, but one way someone told me to avail is to become a government official which is of remote possibility.

hair metal recollections

2008-08-27T12:27:00.004+08:00

the raspy voice of axle rose and, for me, the haunting guitar solo of slash in "sleeping child" and the other hair metal songs of the 90's bring me an instant ride back to my childhood memories. they were the songs of my childhood.

it is just unfair that their songs are often associated with the red light district.

-- while listening to a playlist of hair metal songs after lunch during work.